


Days Off

by moonrunes



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:00:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23076673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonrunes/pseuds/moonrunes
Summary: Sam wakes up sick and Roberto does everything in his power to help.
Relationships: Roberto da Costa/Sam Guthrie
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38





	Days Off

It took Roberto a frankly embarrassing amount of time to realize that something is wrong.

On the surface, everything was fine -- great, even. Sam had a tendency to rise early and take the heat of the bed with him, leaving Roberto alone most mornings, but when Roberto woke up, Sam was still curled around him, breathing slowly. It was warm, it was sleepy, and it was _perfect_ , right up until Sam rolled away and coughed weakly into his pillow.

“Sam?” Roberto said, yawning. “You alright?”

Sam grunted and curled up tighter, and Roberto frowned, sitting up. “Sam?”

He leaned over and pressed his hand to Sam’s forehead, like all the moms in the old TV shows used to do, and Sam hummed. “You’re warm.”

“So are you,” Roberto said. “Really warm.”

Sam coughed into his pillow again before rolling over and curling around Roberto. “Mmm. Sorry, I’m _freezing_.”

“No, no, don’t be sorry. I’m just gonna grab the thermometer really fast, okay? I’ll be right back.” Roberto slipped out of Sam’s arms (much to his own disappointment), shivering as he walked on the cold tiles of the bathroom to search for the thermometer in the closet behind the door. 

“Aha! Hold still.”

The temperature recorded by the thermometer went up and kept going up, supervised by Roberto’s worry. Sam raised an eyebrow at him but it went unnoticed as the final temperature beeped.

“I’m no expert, but 101.3 sounds like a fever to me,” he remarked, trying to stay calm. “I bet you should rest.”

Sam harumphed, curling up tighter in his blankets, and Roberto leaned over and kissed him gently on the forehead. “Um, I think fluids are a good idea -- are you hungry?”

“Not really,” Sam murmured, his voice made deeper by sleep. “I’ll be alright, love. Just gotta sleep it off.”

“Uh huh. But I’m gonna make sure you eat something anyways.” Roberto tucked the blankets tighter around Sam and crept away, relaxing once he crossed the threshold of their room, walking slowly down the stairs into the kitchen. 

“Hmm.”

Usually, the kitchen was Sam’s domain. His mother had taught him a fair amount about cooking, but Nina da Costa had not been overly inclined to cooking, nor had Roberto had much of an interest in it (soccer was always higher on his priority list), but here he was faced with a dilemma. Soup was the traditional sickday fare, as Roberto well knew from the last time he’d been sick and Sam had provided an _excellent_ chicken noodle soup, but for all Sam claimed, soup wasn’t easy for someone with no experience in cooking.

He leaned against the counter and frowned at his phone. “Google, don’t fail me now.”

The further he scrolled, the more desperate he became, every recipe waxing poetic about pieces of equipment he wasn’t even sure they owned, but only after elongated storytelling sections. Every mountain seemed insurmountable, every soup seemed unattainable, and his boyfriend was only getting sicker. 

Roberto sighed, cradling his head in his hands before straightening up again. “Desperate times, desperate measures, great amounts of humility,” he muttered, opening up his contacts section.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to call her, he told himself. It was that she was an intimidating lady at the best of times, and the best of times didn’t include dating her oldest son.

“Hello?”

Roberto forced himself to stand up straight and put a better, less sleepy voice on. “Hi, Mrs. Guthrie.”

She clicked her tongue and Roberto could practically hear her smile. “Roberto, how many times have I told you? You can call me Lucinda.”

Roberto chuckled awkwardly. “That’s -- it’s okay. Really. Anyways, I have a question?”

“Ask away.”

“Sam is sick,” he blurted. “Can you teach me how to make soup?”

“Only if you have time,” he amended, pinching the bridge of his nose and silently cursing himself. “I mean-”

“Of course I have time,” Mrs. Guthrie said, her voice gentle over the line. “Now, what ingredients do you have in your fridge?”

“Uh, milk, eggs, various vegetables-”

“Like what?”

“Celery, broccoli, carrots, uh, something purple? I’ve never seen this one before,” Roberto admitted, laughing awkwardly, but Mrs. Guthrie didn’t dish out the judgement he thought she would. 

“Well, that’s alright. Anything else?”

“A thing of, uh, ‘bone broth,’ but I think Sam made it.”

“Good. ‘S better for you than the store-bought stuff. So, here’s what you’re gonna do…”

~~~

Roberto looked up as Sam shambled downstairs, the blanket from the bed wrapped around his shoulders, clearly a little more lucid but still very sick -- and still, he smiled to see Sam mobile. “Hey, babe. Feeling any better?”

Sam blushed like he always did whenever Roberto used an adoring nickname, though he kept his distance, sitting down on a stood across the counter from Roberto. “A little. What’re you up to?”

“Making soup. Say hi.” He thrust the phone towards Sam, set on speaker, and Mrs. Guthrie laughed from the other end. 

“Hey, Sam. ‘Berto tells me you’re sick.”

“Only a little,” Sam protested, and Mrs. Guthrie scoffed. 

“Little is still sick. Roberto, what does the soup look like?”

“Light golden,” Roberto answered promptly, and she hummed approvingly.

“Very good. Congratulations on making your first soup -- hang on, you’re on speaker.”

A chorus of “hellos” and “get well soons” came soaring out of the phone and both Sam and Roberto smiled, thanking them before Sam let out another hacking cough and Roberto frowned. 

“You’re going to want to pair that with tea -- put lemon, ginger, and honey in it to soothe the throat,” Mrs. Guthrie informed him. “Sam, hope you feel better! Love you both!”

“Love you too!” Sam responded reflexively, and Roberto couldn’t hide his smile as he turned the stove off and hunted for bowls and mugs (and ginger, he thought -- _what does ginger look like?_ )

“Ginger’s in the drawer in the fridge,” Sam said helpfully, and Roberto turned and smiled at him. 

“Thanks.”

“Ah -- hey, wait-” Sam leaned away from Roberto as Roberto tried to lean forward for a kiss, the latter stopping with a confused expression.

“What?”

“I’m sick,” Sam protested. “No kisses -- I don’t wanna get you sick, too.”

Roberto rolled his eyes. “What if I want kisses?”

“No!”

“Hmph.” Roberto turned away, ladling soup into a pair of bowls and coming up with a pair of mugs (one of them had been a gift from Illyana, a white mug that said SAVE A HORSE! RIDE A COWBOY!). “We’ll see how quickly you change your tune about that, beloved.”

“Uh huh. Thank you.” Sam blew gently on the soup, sending ripples across the surface, and smiled at Roberto in that way of his. “Looks really good, ‘Berto. You should be proud.”

“I’ll be proud if it actually tastes good,” Roberto replied, watching the kettle apprehensively. Sam laughed, though it quickly turned into a hacking cough. 

“Ahh. I’m sure it’ll taste great, Bobby. And you don’t need to look at the kettle like that -- ‘s not gonna bite.”

“Yeah, I know. Might explode, though.”

“We can only hope not.” 

Roberto busied himself with the tea, not daring to look as Sam took small sips of the soup, frowning at the tea infusers and the cowboy mug, praying that he’d heard Mrs. Guthrie’s instructions correctly. The sips from behind him stopped and he nearly stopped breathing, worry rising in his sternum until he felt a gentle pressure behind him as Sam hugged him gently.

“Soup’s really good, ‘Berto. You should be proud.”

“Does this mean I get a kiss?”

“Mmm. No.”

“You just love torturing me, is that it?” Roberto complained, collecting the mugs and setting them down on the coffee table before the TV. “You want me to die of lack of attention?”

“I want you to live and not get sick, that’s what,” Sam retorted, bringing his soup carefully to the coffee table as well, curling up in the blanket.

“I’ll take kisses over being sick any day of the week.” Roberto set his own soup down and leaned into Sam’s side, noting with smug satisfaction that Sam didn’t stop him, instead heaving a dramatic sigh and wrapping an arm around him. “Anyways, I think the plan for today should be a movie marathon, so is it gonna be Trek or Wars?”

“Hmm. Trek. Not in the mood to watch one family destroy the galaxy.”

Roberto laughed, reaching for the remote. “Boldly going it is!”

~~~

Sam eventually fell asleep on the couch, and when Roberto felt his forehead, it felt cooler than before, his cough dwindling to a faint murmur deep in his chest. It was a good sign, he figured, and resolved to send Mrs. Guthrie a thank you. 

It wasn’t too much effort to wrap the blanket around Sam and carry him upstairs -- a wonderful side effect of his mutation was that he was indeed strong enough to carry Sam anywhere, a fact he didn’t use to his advantage often enough. He set Sam down gently on the bed and hopped in after him, brushing the hair away from his face and smiling.

“G’night, Sam. Sleep well.”


End file.
